"I expected to be on my way to Constantinople by this time—a prisoner," the weary officer replied.
"It's about time we packed up too. There's only a little more big baggage, and perhaps a hundred and fifty men of the beach parties, military landing-officers, and your people to go off from here, and that finishes the bag of tricks. Haven't we pulled their legs? Listen! they're sniping just as usual, up there. I'm just going round to get those stores properly started burning, and then pack up. I'm really sorry to leave, for some reasons," he said, glancing round his tiny little office "dug-out", with the bare rock on one side and the sand-bag walls.
He sent the Orphan, with one of the Pier-masters, to make a last search of the left flank. Off they went, rounded Suvla Point, and worked slowly along under the foot of the cliffs again, the Pier-master hailing the shore occasionally through a megaphone. Not a sound came back, except the echo from the face of the cliffs. They went some two miles along the coast, turned, and steamed back quickly, because they saw the glare of the burning fires, and thought that now, at any rate, the Turks would realize what had happened, and would come tearing down. Suvla Point and Saunders Pier were lighted up by the crackling, leaping flames, and in his four boats, still lying alongside the pier, the last of the people to leave Suvla had crowded. Four or five army officers came across to the less crowded picket-boat, and then, with an extraordinary feeling of exhilaration, he towed them off to the waiting trawlers, and stood off whilst those last people crowded into them.
This accomplished, he received orders to anchor his boats, and, with that same Pier-master, to make another last search along the cliffs on the left flank.
Away he went, and perhaps not more than half a mile—certainly not a mile—from the end of Suvla Point they saw a small group of dark figures on top of the cliffs. The Pier-master, a lusty naval lieutenant, hailed them through his megaphone; and a voice shouted back: "We're English! We're English!"
"That's funny," said the Pier-master. "Edge in a little closer; get your maxim ready."
The coxswain steered in towards the shore, and again the Pier-master hailed, and again a single voice called back: "We're English! We're English!"
"Well, if they were English, they would all shout," he said. "Keep her out! They are Turks, those chaps; probably a patrol which has pushed along the edge of the cliffs and does not know what to make of things. They would make a 'hullabaloo', right enough, if they were our chaps left behind."
The picket-boat steamed along under the cliffs, hailing every now and then, until they had passed the place where the left-flank trenches, coming down from Jephson's Post, touched the shore. Not a man could be seen, nor did any answer come back in response to the hails through the megaphone.
"That's finish!" the Pier-master told the Orphan. "Turn her round." Over went the wheel, round twisted the picket-boat, back she steamed to where the four boats lay, out beyond Suvla Point; and although the moon had disappeared by this time, there was not the slightest difficulty in finding them, for the whole water reflected the flames of the burning stores, and the boats and the men's faces showed up plainly.